I am from Warren, Vermont, a very small town. When I was young, my Pop would take us to The Capitol, then a beautiful art deco theater complete with friezes and a gigantic balcony — more church than cinema. It is in Montpelier, Vermont, still a very small town. We’d talk about films endlessly, and when I was about eleven, he bought me my first scripts, The Hustler and Some Like It Hot. For my eleventh or twelfth birthday, he dropped my buddies and me at the Capitol for the matinee. We sat in the near empty balcony, ready for a rollicking western or comedy. What we got was Easy Rider. We were jarred, but we remember the story, the acting, the cinematography all these years later.

My Pop made sense of his life in part through movies. Teaching and coaching at a rural high school, trying to navigate being a parent, a husband, a teacher and not always doing great at it, it’s pretty clear movies spoke to him — helped him find his way through. I retreated to movies, too. I knew by junior high that I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I also knew I had to take a “practical route” to move my life forward. Passion vs Pension.

Years later, a boss gave me my inciting incident to turn my life around. I was legal counsel to Howard Dean when he was governor of Vermont. When my son was born, the Governor told me to take six weeks off—no argument. During those weeks, with my son in a bouncy seat sucking a pacifier for the only time in his young life, I wrote my first screenplay.

Later, I did all the things aspiring writers should do. I attended Bread Loaf, got some stories published, shot a short film based on my first script, and shot another short based on a story I’d written — it won a nice prize. I stumbled forward with my work with no training or real understanding of the industry. Fresh meat. I didn’t know what I was doing. I relied on instinct and common sense to guide me. And I believe talent.

Even with talent, it’s hard to get into this industry and learn all you need to know to succeed. If you’re not able to take the traditional route into the industry — start young and go to an expensive film school, take low or no-pay internships and assistant jobs, move to LA or NYC and live in a box — the path is overgrown and unclear. Add cultural biases and various discriminations, and the journey is nearly impossible.

This is what drove me to start the Labs: to help demystify process, impart some skills and insights, and break down industry barriers. Focus on the story and the talent.

I met David Pope at a pitching workshop at Cannes. I had a short film at the Cannes Short Film Corner, which gave me access to free coffee and free workshops, so there I sat sipping a coffee in a pitching workshop run by David. I learned he has a respectful, thoughtful way about him. He listens carefully and meaningfully to each person, gives concrete advice, and teaches critical skills. We talked after the workshop and had a beer—a great guy.

By coincidence, we met again in Rotterdam the following January. I was participating in CineMart and David was facilitating The Rotterdam Festival’s Producers Lab, which he does each year. I pitched the idea of the Labs to David and he signed on. Within two years, we had people coming from around the world.

The program has grown organically to now offer labs, retreats, integrated 1-on-1 mentoring, and a fistful of other programs, both in-person and online, to push work forward.

Stowe Story Labs is designed to do that, and the tools we use are to foster community, collaboration, learning, perfecting, and doing.

The power of story to change the world and to give people a hook into understanding and awareness is as old as consciousness. Today, this is a pretty important power. Anyone with a terrific story and the demonstrable ability to do the work and collaborate should be able to push that work forward, regardless of background.

Options for storytellers have expanded beyond the one-screen Capitol theaters of the world, and the processes to get the work made and seen have become deeply complex. I hope we help make the journey a bit less lonely, a bit more defined, and maybe a step or two lighter. Through these efforts, maybe we will have the chance to bend the world a bit through story.

David Rocchio
Founder and Director, Stowe Story Labs